Xi'an, the eastern starting point of the ancient Silk Road. In 2013, the first China-Europe Express (Xi'an) opened, and the sound of camel bells at the starting point of the ancient Silk Road turned into a rolling roar across the desert. Over the past ten years, the number of trains running at the Xi'an Assembly Center of the China-Europe Railway Express has continued to reach new highs. In 2023, Xi'an will become the first city in the country to exceed 5,000 annual trains of China-Europe trains, accounting for about 1/4 of the total number of trains in the country, and the main indicators such as train operation, freight volume, and heavy container rate have ranked first in the country for six consecutive years. Through mountains and seas, across Europe and Asia; Connect the dots into a thread, weave the thread into a net. With the advancement of the construction of the Xi'an assembly center of the China-Europe Express, the "assembly" effect of the China-Europe Express (Xi'an) serving the whole country and opening up to the west has been continuously emerging, and a higher-level open platform has been accelerated at the starting point of the Silk Road. From "point-to-point" to "hub-to-hub" On September 26, the X8159 China-Europe train carrying steel structure construction materials produced by local enterprises in Shaanxi slowly drove out of Xi'an International Port Station and headed for Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, marking the successful operation of the first China-Europe train (Xi'an-Belgrade) Shaanxi manufacturing customized train. "This company has not sent goods through the China-Europe train before, and the time required for this transportation is relatively tight, so we have customized an exclusive transportation plan according to the needs of customers." Shi Miao, deputy general manager of Xi'an International Land Port Group Multimodal Transport Co., Ltd., said. The successful operation of this customized train not only provides customers with more accurate and rich services, but also allows more and more "Made in China" to take the "Belt and Road" express train to go abroad. Since 2019, the China-Europe Railway Express (Xi'an) has entered the "fast lane", with the number of trains exceeding 2,000, 3,000, 3,800 and 4,600 each year year by year. In 2023, the China-Europe Express (Xi'an) will run 5,351 trains throughout the year, a year-on-year increase of 15.3%, and the sales of bulk commodities will reach 240 billion yuan. Today, the China-Europe Express (Xi'an) has become the vanguard of the China-Europe Express and the iconic brand of the Belt and Road Initiative. Xi'an International Port Station, the starting station, has become the largest railway logistics center in Northwest China and the distribution center of China-Europe trains in the inland, with an average of 1 hour and 40 minutes a day for a China-Europe train to depart or arrive at Xi'an International Port Station.

In July 2020, the National Development and Reform Commission arranged special funds in the central budget to support the five hub node cities of Zhengzhou, Chongqing, Chengdu, Xi'an and Urumqi to carry out the construction of the demonstration project of the China-Europe Railway Express Assembly Center, promote the transformation of the China-Europe Railway Express from "point-to-point" to "hub-to-hub", and accelerate the formation of an efficient collection and distribution system of "combination of trunk and branch, hub distribution and distribution". After four years of development, the construction of the Xi'an assembly center of the China-Europe Express has advanced by leaps and bounds, especially as one of the achievements of the China-Central Asia Summit, the Xi'an terminal in Kazakhstan, jointly built by Xi'an Free Trade Port Construction and Operation Co., Ltd. and Harbin Railway Express Co., Ltd., was officially put into operation in February this year. The staff told reporters that the wharf, which covers a total area of about 100 acres and has a design processing capacity of 655,000 TEUs per year, significantly improves the delivery efficiency of trains from Xi'an to Central Asia, which not only helps the import and export of Kazakh goods to be quickly distributed and distributed in Xi'an, but also carries the concept of Kazakhstan "accelerating the formation of a trade and logistics distribution center in China", and has become a new bright spot in Sino-Kazakhstan trade cooperation.

In 2023, the freight volume of the railway between China and Kazakhstan will be 28 million tons, an increase of 22% over the previous year. "With this wharf, after Kazakhstan's goods gather in Xi'an, they can further take the train south to Guangxi and enter Vietnam, Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries, which is another economic and trade 'artery' for us." Ozas Azilov, deputy general manager of the China branch of Harbin Railway Express Co., Ltd., said. "The Almaty China-Kazakhstan logistics station project cooperated by China and Kazakhstan is also under construction, and after it is completed and put into use, it will echo with the east and west of Xi'an Wharf in Kazakhstan to realize the upgrading of the two countries' hub to hub." Yuan Xiaojun, general manager of Xi'an Free Trade Port Construction and Operation Co., Ltd., said. The arrival time in Europe has greatly shortened the development of the Xi'an assembly center of the China-Europe train, and has always focused on the construction of "channel + hub + network", constantly improving the port infrastructure, expanding the international logistics channel, improving the operation efficiency of the train, reducing the whole transportation cost, and improving the comprehensive service level, and gradually becoming a model of high-quality operation of the China-Europe train in the country. Bai Xin, director of the Open Cooperation Department of the Shaanxi Provincial Development and Reform Commission, said that Shaanxi has achieved remarkable results in promoting the quality and efficiency of China-Europe trains. ——High operating efficiency. With the data of the Kazakhstan Railways Bureau to achieve interconnection, Xi'an to Tashkent from 13 days to 9 days, to Russia from 15 days to 9 days, the whole process of the Trans-Caspian Sea train from 20-25 days to 12 days, the whole timetable train every week "four to three times" high-frequency stable operation, the fastest 10 days to arrive in the hinterland of Europe. ——Low comprehensive cost. It is the first in the country to realize the data connection of customs and railway supervision, intelligent customs declaration, export assembly pre-assembly, tax rebate at the port of departure, container circular transportation, etc., which has increased the operation efficiency of the train by more than 1/3 and reduced the comprehensive cost by more than 15%. ——Excellent service function. The cloud cabin system was launched to provide enterprises with one-stop, one-ticket international intermodal transportation services, and the customs declaration and document preparation time was shortened from 5-7 hours in the past to less than 5 minutes. The standardization level of station operations has been continuously improved, and the assembly and distribution time has been reduced by nearly 50%. The China-Europe Railway Express has brought new opportunities for the development of Shaanxi's foreign trade.

Statistics show that from January to August this year, the total import and export trade value of Shaanxi Province was 300.67 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.8%, ranking fourth in the country. "We have explored a complete set of shipment cooperation models for new energy vehicles and photovoltaic modules from Xi'an to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, which greatly expands the categories of goods transported by enterprises." Li Ye, general manager of Xi'an Branch of Beijing Xinsaifu International Freight Forwarding Co., Ltd., said, "Thanks to the high-quality operation of the China-Europe train, the number of customers and freight volume of the company have increased by 20% and 30% respectively since the beginning of this year. "In addition to the goods of local enterprises in Shaanxi, more and more cars, shoes and hats, automotive LCD modules, wireless routers and other goods from the east and central regions also choose to assemble in Xi'an and then take the train for export." Nowadays, it is no longer simply subsidies to attract foreign enterprises, but the comprehensive benefits released by the superposition of 'comprehensive insurance + trains'. Chen Xiao, director of Xi'an Station Customs, said that only one tax rebate in the comprehensive bonded zone can save about 1,400 yuan for enterprises per standard box. In addition, with the opening of data between customs and railways, the establishment of a smart logistics system to separate the goods that need to be inspected and those that do not need to be inspected have greatly improved the efficiency of customs clearance.